{"id":62,"date":"2012-11-09T22:48:50","date_gmt":"2012-11-10T05:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brianirwin\/?p=62"},"modified":"2012-11-18T23:04:11","modified_gmt":"2012-11-19T06:04:11","slug":"supply-chains-and-the-london-2012-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brianirwin\/2012\/11\/09\/supply-chains-and-the-london-2012-olympics\/","title":{"rendered":"Supply Chains and the London 2012 Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Running a business\u2019s supply chain<\/a> is a tough task; however, running a supply chain during one of the world\u2019s largest events, the Olympics, is even bigger. The general verdict is the London 2012<\/a> logistics<\/a> plan was a success.<\/p>\n

How did companies cope with increased congestion and irregular route closures? Retailers<\/a> used 4 main strategies to overcome these barriers: Re-route, Re-time, Reduce, and Revise. Re-routing involved avoiding heavily congested areas by using alternate depots and routes. Re-timing meant increasing after hours and nighttime deliveries. Reducing involved using fewer shipments<\/a>, mainly through multiple retailers sharing shipments. Finally, revising meant using alternate forms of transit<\/a>, such as river, foot, and bicycle, to access difficult areas.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, the Olympics reinforces the same supply chain lessons learned from Dell<\/a> and Zara<\/a>. Flexibility is paramount to successful supply chains because it avoids depending on error prone demand forecasts<\/a>; keeping open, responsive communication and information channels allows retailers to cope with dynamic situations, which Zara exemplifies. Furthermore, virtually integrated<\/a> networks, widely used by Dell, and co-operation between companies allows for fewer shipments and increased efficiency<\/a>. In conclusion, supply chain flexibility and open information flow is key to success, which Zara, Dell, and the Olympics illustrate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Articles:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.retail-week.com\/in-business\/supply-chain\/analysis-olympic-legacy-for-supply-chain\/5041990.article<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.spendmatters.com\/index.cfm\/2012\/8\/17\/Friday-Rant-An-Olympics-Procurement-and-Supply-Chain-PostMortem-Part-1<\/a><\/p>\n

Image:<\/p>\n

Vogelaar, Rob. “Olympic Rings.” Logo.\u00a0Aviationnews.eu<\/em> 2 Jul. 2012. 9 Nov. 2012<\/p>\n

<http:\/\/www.aviationnews.eu\/2012\/07\/02\/embraer-to-support-executive-jets-operations-during-olympics\/>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Running a business\u2019s supply chain is a tough task; however, running a supply chain during one of the world\u2019s largest events, the Olympics, is even bigger. The general verdict is the London 2012 logistics plan was a success. How did … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14310,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brianirwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brianirwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brianirwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brianirwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14310"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brianirwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brianirwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brianirwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions\/107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brianirwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brianirwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brianirwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}